Novartis is under investigation for allegedly bribing thousands of Greek doctors

Greece’s financial police have raided the Athens headquarters of Novartis, and a team of agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation have flown in to study seized company records, as part of an expanding probe into claims that the drug company has bribed over 4000 Greek doctors to prescribe or support the reimbursement of its drugs.

US investigators have been probing Novartis’s foreign marketing practices for two years. Greece’s investigation, ordered by the country’s supreme court prosecutor, was announced by the government after intense media speculation following a public suicide attempt on New Year’s Day by a Greek Novartis executive.